The present invention relates to wired computer network technologies. In particular, the present invention relates to a wiring standard selector switch capable of switching between multiple wiring standards used in wired computer networks, such as, cross-over and straight through, for example. More particularly, the present invention relates to a universal network cable comprising the wiring standard selector switch.
Wired computer networks generally consist of a plurality of network devices connected to each other using a plurality of network cables to enable data communication between each of the network devices. One of the most common forms of cabling that is used in wired networks are Category 5 (Cat5) Twisted Pair, which consists of 8 wires (4 pairs). Each of the four pairs of wires is colour coded with a primary wire (solid colour) and its counterpart secondary wire (striped), the T-568A and T-568B Cat5 network cable colouring schemes are presented in FIG. 1. To be able to connect the Cat5 network cable to network devices a male 8 Position 8 Contact (8P8C) connector or more commonly referred to as an RJ45 connector is fitted and crimped onto each end of the Cat5 network cable. Each of the primary and secondary wires at each end of the Cat5 cable is fitted into an 8P8C connector in a pre-determined order. The pre-determined wiring order are specific wiring standards and are dependant on a number of variables including, for example, the type of network device (e.g. a hub, router, network card, etc.) and whether the connection is directly connected (e.g. network card to network card) or routed through a network device (e.g. network card to network hub to network card). This is due to the fact that each of the primary and secondary wires is given a specific function which may differ between network devices, the specific function of each of the wires in the T-568A and T-568B Cat5 network cable colouring schemes are also presented in FIG. 1. Some of the more common wiring standards include, for example, crossover, straight-through, T1, ATM loopback, rolled, etc. In each of the aforementioned wiring standards it is necessary to use a specific Cat5 network cable, i.e. a cross-over cable, or a straight-through cable, to connect the network devices together.
Generally, when Network Technicians or the like are on the job they perform various tasks which may include, setting up a wired computer network, configuring network devices or troubleshooting network connectivity problems. These tasks require network connectivity between network devices and the Network Technicians' network device (in many instances this device is a notebook computer). Each of the network devices requiring the Network Technician to connect to may use a different wiring standard; thus requiring the Network Technician to have readily available a separate Cat5 network cable for each device connection. It can become expensive to purchase and cumbersome to carry all of the different types of Cat5 network cables the Network Technician might come across on the job. It would be beneficial for a Network Technician to achieve network connectivity with a variety of network devices having a variety of wiring standards using a single Cat5 network cable.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,794,577, issued Sep. 21, 2004 (Bhogal) describes cables used in computer networks and more specifically cables that incorporate multiple configuration settings. In an embodiment of the invention the network cable includes two connectors and a corresponding set of connector pins and signal wires. A coupling piece with at least two configuration settings controls the routing between the set of signal wires. The cable is transitionable between the at least two configuration settings with a hand settable switch, the position of the switch dictates the coupling configuration such as, a pass-through configuration and a crossover configuration, for example.
United States Patent Application No. 2008/0274629, published Nov. 6, 2008 (Meyer) describes an apparatus for enabling serial communication between two devices utilizing different cables, connectors or wiring schemes. An embodiment of the apparatus is composed of a rack-mountable housing with two RJ45 standard modular jacks for receiving RJ45 cables. The apparatus houses a plurality of electrical connections between the two RJ45 standard modular jacks, and the electrical connections effect a remapping of the signals between the two jacks. The remapping of the wiring may be implemented using wires connected between posts, using a printed circuit board, a programmable or processing device, or any other method for making the electrical connections between the two cable ports. The remapping of the wiring may be implemented or updated on the fly, using software or hardware switching or programming, or alternatively, hardwired at the time of manufacture. The electronic devices may each represent a component in a computer network, including, a personal computer, a router, a gateway, a modem, a printer, a scanner, a keyboard, a mouse, or any other electronic device capable of communication using a serial communication standard.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,579,407, issued Apr. 1, 1986 (Shimada) describes an interface cable, of the RS232C standard type interface, which can perform many kinds of cable connections. A plurality of changeover switches are provided between the RS232C connectors connected at the ends of the connecting cable, which contains multiple lines therein, the switches being used for selectively changing the connection with respect to at least a part of the multiple lines. By selectively turning ‘on’ or ‘off’ each of the changeover switches various kinds of cable connections can be performed using only a single cable, such as, between modem equipment and terminal equipment, between modem equipment to modem equipment, and between terminal equipment and terminal equipment, for example.
United States Patent Application No. 2005/0059291, published Mar. 17, 2005 (Wood) describes an improved method of assembling electrical connectors to wiring, such as, for example, RJ-45 connectors. The invention provides a connector plug with an internal circuit board for rerouting the wires, and a method of attaching wires from a multi-wire cable to an RJ-45 connector plug without the requirement to manually separate, sort and route individual wires to specific pins. The wires are attached to the connector plug in the same order that they are arranged within the cable. The circuit board with the connector plug, is interposed between the pins on the connector plug, which are connected to the cable wires, and the connector pins on the other end are attached to a wall jack or a device.
The present invention was made in recognition of the above-identified art and with a view to aiding Network Technicians too easily and more efficiently enable connectivity between two network devices having different wiring standards.